by Zoey Parker
He doesn’t understand.
This can’t last, and it’ll last even briefer if I start taking risks. Going out places with him. Being seen in public. No, no there’s no way.
“I’m sorry,” I say, and anger ripples over his face. “That won’t be good for either of us,” I say, and his arms lock around my waist.
My heartbeat becomes a hammer. What if that was a test – what if that was my last chance to save myself?
Mashing his lips onto my ear, he says, “Well, I guess we better get to what we’re here for.”
Then, in one smooth motion, he lifts me.
Too shocked to scream, all I can think is: Now, this is it.
But he only carries me closer to the main building, lays me down, and gets on top of me.
“Feeling your ass against him was driving him crazy,” he growls, pressing his erection into me.
His hand sweeps across my tits.
“Seeing those hard nips of yours didn’t help.”
I undo his belt.
My pussy doesn’t feel much like waiting, now that he mentions it.
Next is his black pants, and I wonder if he shot at my brother in these pants, how many times he’s thought of fucking me in these pants.
Then it’s the boxers: as pink as my pussy must be flushed now. His hand’s there already, twirling one finger between my wet lips than another.
“You make it so easy for me,” he growls.
He squeezes my ass, and I take out his cock.
We roll, so I’m on top of him, pulling his pants down further, giving his dick a smacking kiss on the way.
Then his pants are at his feet, off, and I’m crawling up him, over his ivory thighs, the hairs as fine and white as spider webs, his dick tall and wide, waiting.
When I’m in front of his dick, he lifts me by the waist, then moves me over it, so just the tip’s nestling against my pussy lips.
Still lifted, I spread my legs further, my bare feet sliding on the metal grate floor.
Then Gabe slams me down, a cry ripping out from deep within me.
He grins, the falcon on his pec rippling, smirking itself at the painful pleasure ripping through me.
This time he lowers me gently, like I’m a porcelain doll, eases his rod into me, a bit further then further.
I’m bent over, my eyes boring into his, my hands clawing at his chest, begging for more.
He ups the pace a bit, shoves me down a bit faster, a bit further, each time he brings me down a bit faster, a bit deeper, teasing me so that my pussy sends out more and more desperate fingers of pleasure up my legs.
Until I rip his hands away and slam my pelvis down myself, so hard that while I moan my satisfaction at the change, he grunts his.
Now left to her own devices, my pussy goes full-throttle. I claim his rod as my own, fuck myself on it, back and forth, up and down, then harder and deeper, over and over again. And amidst this syllable-grunting, pussy groaning, quivering fuck, it occurs to me that now – this very second, as I’m about to come – this would be the perfect time to do it, for him to kill me, to shove me over the edge, about to come, bound to die, unsatisfied forever.
On my most intense shove yet, I pause, his cock deep in my pussy, both of us quivering with our pent-up orgasms ready to burst.
His eyes flutter open, his mouth contorts into a snarl.
His hand strikes my buttocks, and I’m thrown back into shaking, gripping, shoving motion, lifting myself and slamming down and then again, and amidst it all, as he explodes into me and I him, I welcome death as I die this sweet death of sorts, my whole body convulsing, as he lifts me out of myself and the pleasure is nothing short of divine, the sounds are not mine, and I am free.
We ride wave after wave of orgasm, of shaking, tingling deliverance, until we flop back, slowly unlatch ourselves.
After, the city is the first thing I see. The towers of radiance, the sea of shine. And nothing. There is no grate. I am one shift, one roll away from falling to my death.
I start back, into his arms.
He chuckles.
“Pretty lucky, huh? Just noticed myself. Looks like we got too into it, ended up too close to the edge.”
I don’t say anything, still horrified at how close to death I was, still am.
I’m literally in the arms of the enemy. My thighs are wet with his pleasure. What am I doing?
“So, about that dinner…” Gabriel is saying, “I understand your concern. The place isn’t open now, so why tempt you with tasty things? We’ll have it next time.”
I say nothing while he rises. I take the hand he offers, avoid his insistent look.
“I’ll think about it,” I say in a voice we both know is a lie.
We go to the door, where he pounds a button that makes it slide open.
As we walk through, my belly gives an angry yowl.
“What about somewhere else? I know some places,” Gabriel says, leaning over to pick up my clothes.
I keep my gaze on the pile of clothes I’m accepting.
“No, I’m not hungry. I want to go home,” I say.
The silence is his scowl growing.
My belly rumbles out its own denial of my claim.
Gabriel grabs my hand, jams the button.
“Then home you’ll go.”
He strides in the elevator without waiting for me.
I stumble in.
He hits another button and, as the elevator barrels down, I stagger into my skirt and shirt.
Once I’m done, he shoves out my bra, panties and Colt pistol. Without meeting his eye, I tuck them and my gun in my coat.
When I do dare glance at Gabriel, he gives me a terrible sort of smile.
“Shouldn’t carry around things you don’t really know how to use.”
I say nothing.
If he really knew how well I can use that gun, he wouldn’t have given it back to me at all. No, in fact, he would’ve probably used it on me himself.
Going down, the elevator seems to take seven times longer than its trip up.
Gabriel’s anger is electric, fills the wide metal thing, suffocates me, arouses me.
I want him to kiss me again, but I’m afraid what he’ll do if I try.
When the elevator finally stops out the bottom, Gabriel storms off the same way we came, past the empty shop stands. The sunglasses rack Gabriel shoved me into looks strangely poignant, almost accusing.
If I made the right decision rejecting Gabriel’s offer, then why do I feel so wrong?
As we make our way through the lobby, Gabriel glides ahead at the same clipped pace until we’re outside. Then, turning to me but not looking at me, he asks, “Where do you want me to drop you off then?”
“Nowhere. I’ll get a cab.”
Now he looks at me, his mouth twisting into a snarl of a smile.
“Goodnight Toni.”
And then he storms off.
I watch him, fear and relief and pain and joy all bashing against each other in my head.
And then, once he’s out of sight, another fear arises, the worst fear of all.
What if this, all of this – from the first meeting to his anger just now – is an act? What if Gabriel knows who I am, has always known? What if all this is just an act, a ploy to distract me, to get information out of me, to trick me?
What if Gabriel Pierson knows me and doesn’t care about me in the slightest?
Chapter 19
Gabriel
My release made me more tense. Whaddya know?
I storm to my bike, get on it, clamp my hand on the gas and take off, trying to move as fast as my thoughts are racing.
Why do I even care that Tony doesn’t want to have dinner anyway? I don’t want anything serious now after all. I have enough on my plate without some… whatever this is.
Emptied-out downtown Toronto is calming. Just dim abandoned buildings, a finally-empty road, the hobos and me. Not the worst time for a nighttime drive.
Really,
I should be heading home, but I’m not done with the Piccolos. Not yet.
They may have gotten away in the office, outnumbered me, but now I’m going to rip through their office.
I’ll find out what they’ve done with Hannah if I have to burn the place down.
I fly down the city streets like they’re highways, then the highway like it’s the Autobahn.
By the time I pull up to the black building, I’ve just gotten started.
I park in front of the building, call up Pulse.
“I’m here.”
“3 am? Boss, you crazy.”
I laugh and hang up.
The whole building is dark and locked down, but that’s okay. My boys are coming.
A few minutes later, some black-hoodied boys are unlocking the door for me.
Then it’s to the elevator, to the Penthouse.
Pulse is splayed in the front desk chair, wearing a ridiculous little pink sun hat.
“Hiya, Gabey.”
He makes the chair do a little twirl, and the hat sails off his head and to the ground.
He grins at it.
“You won’t believe the kind of shit their desk bitch has: Cotton Candy scented Body Butter, Cotton Candy scented hand sanitizer, Cotton Candy scented pens – hell, she has Cotton Candy scented Kleenex. At this rate, I reckon the bitch must shit Cotton Candy.”
As if on cue, he sneezes into the slightly pink sheet he’s got in front of him.
“Think I’m allergic,” he says, rubbing his nose with a scowl.
I nod, staring at him, and he continues, “Yeah, right, the office. We didn’t touch anything, just like you said.”
He sweeps his arm in the direction of the paper-strewn hallway.
“Looks like shit, ‘cuz a few of their guys were still trying to clear stuff out when we got here. Don’t think they expected us so fast.”
He twirls his gun in his hands, then places it on the pink Kleenex box.
“We shot one of them, but had to put out the fires they’d started, so they got away.”
Rummaging through a desk, he pulls out a Lindor, “Chocolate?”
I shake my head.
“Where’s the main office – Toni’s?”
Pulse shrugs, sweeps his hand out again.
“Fucked if I know. There’s some Clarence tool, an Anthony, a Roger, your friend Carlos even has his own place, but no Toni. Looks like Toni’s a teleworker.”
I scowl, though I’m hardly surprised.
This whole time, Toni has always been one step ahead of us, so why would now be any different?
He probably suspected that one day we’d get ahold of this office.
“Which one is Carlos’?” I ask as I head down the hallway.
“The last one. The one across from the boardroom,” Pulse’s chocolate-filled mouth replies.
I follow his gaze and head there.
Of course, the one whose door has a stupid golden handle.
Inside is a disaster.
Charred bits of paper, a cracked picture of a woman’s bare legs, a bashed hollow of a computer screen. Even the fan is a one-shuttered sad sputtering piece of shit.
I smirk as I imagine the bastard twisting every which way here, trying to take all his things and destroy them and not piss his pants in fear all at once.
Something on his bashed-in desk catches my eye.
A facedown picture frame.
I pick it up.
It’s a family photo. A Piccolo family photo. They look like a regular old happy family: Papa Piccolo, Mama Piccolo, Carlos Piccolo and… a cut off somebody.
The longer I stare at it, the surer I am that the photo’s been cut.
The photo is lopsided in the frame, not centered. Hell, whoever cut it even left the mystery person’s hand in.
I stare at the hand, its delicate-looking fingers. Christ, if I didn’t know better I would swear that Toni Piccolo was a…
“Hey Boss!”
It’s Pulse, standing in the doorway with a smile like he just found a full vault of Lindors.
“Check this out,” he says, spreading out a ripped, but still legible sheet of paper.
I stare at it, unable to accept just what it is I’m seeing.
“They didn’t…”
Pulse nods.
“You bet those dumb shits did! It’s a map! Of the whole place!”
He presses it to his chest, sighs in ecstasy.
“Aw, sweet Jesus.”
I walk over, take the map in my hands, spread it on the table and look at it.
It’s a complete, room-to-room breakdown of their property. From their family house to the compounds behind it, the Cleaning Supply Cupboard in Compound One to the Back Room in the Basement, this map has got everything.
The Piccolos just handed us a winning ticket.
This is pure gold. With Papa Piccolo knocking on death’s door, and this in our possession, we can’t lose.
I turn to Pulse.
“Have your guys comb over this place for anything else that might be useful, any clue about Hannah or the Piccolos. In the meantime, call up the guys from the other districts, let them know we’re going to meet in the club soon. It’s time to start planning our Piccolo takeout.”
Chapter 20
Toni
The meeting doesn’t start out so good. Probably because I didn’t know there was going to be a meeting at all.
“Where were you?” Carlos demands as soon as I’m through the door.
To be fair, I didn’t exactly expect that our regroup meeting would be in our luxurious showroom of a living room. Scroungy mafia leaders from across the city flopped on our taupe leather couches, looking irritably aware of just how out of place they look.
“Out,” is my answer to Carlos’ question as I walk into the kitchen.
There’s no point in expressing my shock that they’re here. Carlos probably mentioned it in one of the 15 messages he torpedoed into my phone over the last 24 hours.
I grab a chair from the kitchen and bring it into the room.
My arrival is met with a hostile silence: clearly my answer pleased no one.
I look around. Jane is nowhere to be seen, is probably locked in the basement or hiding there of her own accord. Hiding in the basement doesn’t sound so bad to me either right now.
“I was looking into new locations for our office, if you must know,” I say.
“And you thought that was more important than dealing with what was happening at our old one?” Carlos demands.
“If I had come and been seen, they would have put two and two together and killed me on the spot. Unless that’s what you wanted,” I shoot back.
That shuts Carlos right up.
He sits down, pawing at his wrapped-up arm self-consciously. Clearly Gabriel must have hit him.
“The Rebel Saints not knowing my identity is the one advantage we have on them,” I continue, “And, now that they are ransacking our old office as we speak, we need all the advantages we can get.”
The grim reality of my words is reflected on the lieutenants’ drawn faces. Most look like they didn’t sleep a wink last night, a few look like they haven’t slept in weeks.
“And so – the new office – what did you find?” Roger demands, his gaze rolling around the room before stopping insistently on me.
“It’s not that simple,” I say, “Our father paid off that office building manager a couple of decades ago, when the laws were laxer and we weren’t as well known. Now, it’s a different story: the city has cracked down on gangs and the Piccolos aren’t exactly unknown anymore. We can’t just buy any old property without the city poking its nose in.”
“So?” Roger’s ever-bulging eyes demand.
I stare back at him and, suddenly, the answer comes to me.
“So, we’ll have to hold meetings here for now. It’s less than ideal, I’ll be the first to say that. But at least we’ll be well-guarded. The new second compound has better security, so maybe there.
”
